


Helpful Teaching

by Katherine



Category: Doctor Dolittle - Hugh Lofting
Genre: Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake, Gen, Narrated by Tommy Stubbins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24441862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: "I was not in the opera," Polynesia said with a severe dignity made all the stronger in contrast to Cheapside the sparrow's cheeky ways.
Kudos: 3





	Helpful Teaching

**Author's Note:**

> > The old parrot, Polynesia, [...] became so interested in the turtle's seafaring talk she suddenly broke out into one of her sailors' songs:  
>  _Sailing, sailing,_  
>  _Over the bounding main_ —"
>> 
>> Her voice was very scratchy. And Cheapside growled, "Oh, dry up, me old Pollywog!—Voice needs oiling.—You won't never get back into opera again."
> 
> — _Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake_

"I was not in the opera," Polynesia said with a severe dignity made all the stronger in contrast to Cheapside the sparrow's cheeky ways. "As you very well know."

The days of Doctor Dolittle's canary opera had been long ago, when he returned from his first voyage to Africa. The parrot Polynesia (along with Chee-Chee the monkey and the crocodile) had remained then in their home continent, while the Doctor and the rest of his household brought on the journey returned to England.

Cheapside had, so I had heard from the stories of those days, been helpful teaching the pelican chorus for the opera. Perhaps Polynesia could have done as well a job of that, had she been present. I had only ever heard her sing sailors' songs, but those very well. I knew, also, how efficient a teacher she was, impatient in manner at times but nearly endlessly willing to help a hardworking student. (I thought I had been hardworking, myself.) She was the one who had started me on bird and animal languages. It was a matter of no little pride to me that I had thus shared a teacher—at a gap of many years—with the great Doctor Dolittle himself.


End file.
